Transforming Your Home into a Renewable Energy Hub

Most people are constantly looking for ways to be as economical as possible and save money. One of the best ways to do that and cut your monthly utility bills is to invest into upgrading your home with energy renewable sources. By going in this direction to power your home, you can significantly reduce your costs and even get tax incentives for the installation, which makes it even more cost-effective in the end.

Here are several tips how to power your home using energy renewable sources.

Planning and preparation

The key to success of any project is good planning and preparation. Before you begin with any upgrades and installations, have an energy efficiency inspection of your house done in order to determine its current state and the amount of energy consumption. The information you get will be very helpful in deciding on the following course of action regarding the choice of renewable energy sources most suitable for your home.

Home insulation

One of the must-haves in having an energy-efficient home is proper home insulation. A large amount of energy is wasted due to poor insulation. To prevent this, invest into good quality insulation, throughout the entire house, focusing both on the interior and the exterior. The initial costs might be big, but benefits are numerous, mostly being reduced costs of heating in winter and cooling in summer.

Solar panels

One of the most common methods of introducing renewable energy sources into your home is installing solar panels. They can be placed on the roof or ground, and depending on your geographical position and panel orientation, they can give you 10 or more kW daily. For instance, if you opt for a solar system of 5kWp, you’ll have 20 kW/h daily as an annual average, which can save you up to $1800 per year.

A great advantage of solar panel energy is that it can be used in other aspects as well, not only for providing electricity in your home. You can have solar water heaters and solar air conditioning as well. Both of these systems are big energy consumers, so if you turn to solar power, your savings will be enormous.

Powerwall

Technically speaking, a Powerwall is a rechargeable battery and not a genuine renewable energy source, but it combines extremely well with any kind of home renewable generators and it can cut costs significantly.

The Powerwall battery can store several kilowatt hours of electrical energy and can be additionally programmed to charge itself from the grid during low prices and discharge at high prices, which will notably save you money during peak hours. It works best if combined with wind or solar power sources and its best advantage is that it can store excess electricity for later, in the periods when the sun is down or there’s no wind.

Another advantage is that there are almost no fluctuations in your renewable energy generation, which is one of the major downsides of renewable energy sources.

Water power

This is an ingenious and very creative use of available resources, provided you live on a property that has a source of flowing water. Some or all of that stream can be diverted to flow through a turbine which can power your home. You’ll need to locate the largest vertical distance the water travels and direct it through a turbine in a controlled manner. It’s not easy to set up a hydropower generator but there are professionals who can help you with that.

Hydropower offers enormous advantages. Unlike wind and solar power, hydropower is more constant and stable, so the input will be the same regardless the conditions. And, you’ll have one worry less about your generator creating enough energy to power your home.

Using these useful and creative upgrading tips, you can easily transform any home into a warm and comfortable hub, cut your energy costs and contribute greatly to environmental protection. By insulating your home from top to bottom, and installing energy-renewable upgrades, you’ll be a proud owner of a home with possibly the lowest carbon footprint.